Beijing & you rock with Free Olympic Music

Aug. 17, 2008

In celebration of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games, Ultra Records has set up eight of their artists to participate in a new music/art project in cooperation with Coca-Cola. Electronic musicians Tiesto, Kaskade, Benny Benassi, Serge Devant, Jay-J, JES, Lucas Prata, and Cezar have all created a song based upon a provided “Olympic Spirit” theme, and each musician was then teamed up with a Chinese graphic artist who designed artwork to coordinate on classic Coca-Cola soda bottles. You can check out all of the artwork and download the songs for free online at www.coca-cola.com/we8... and nope, there’s no catch, except that Ultra hopes this cultural/artistic exchange will help promote the global Olympic spirit...
If you haven’t had enough of such outdoor summertime music fests as Lollapalooza and Rothbury, don’t fret - there’s a few more fests yet this year, including the newly-finalized Monolith Festival set to take place September 13-14 at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. Headliners Justice and DeVotchKa will join the likes of White Williams, The Veils, Silversun Pickups, Vampire Weekend, TV on the Radio, The Kills, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Band of Horses, Superdrag, Mickey Avalon, and many more to perform live sets, along with a pair of two VIP Gold Pass events and a Monolith Kickoff Party at the Bluebird Theater on September 12. More info, including the whole list of confirmed acts and ticket prices, can be found at www.monolithfestival.com...
Best Buy is the lucky retailer who snagged exclusivity for The Police’s new live CD/DVD, Certifiable, which is due to drop on October 7th. Filmed last December in Buenos Aires, the set will be available as a 2 CD/2 DVD set, a single disc BluRay/2 disc CD combo, or a triple-vinyl set with MP3 downloads. Among the tunes set for inclusion will be “Driven to Tears,” “King of Pain,” and “Can’t Stand Losing You” - fans can also tune in to www.bestbuy.com/thepolice to view, for free, the video encore from what’s been called The Police’s “final concert ever” at Madison Square Garden (although, hm, haven’t we heard that before?)...
Singer Annie Lennox has been working hard on her upcoming CD, The Annie Lennox Collection, set to hit stores next month; Lennox, who has been “so busy and so focused” on other projects that she hasn’t had time to write new songs for the set, instead is including her own previous hits “Why” and “Walking on Broken Glass” as well as her own interpretations of several cover songs, including Keane’s “Closer Now” (which she retitled “Pattern of My Life” for her album) and Ash’s “Shining Light.” Lennox will also join Bryan Adams, Natasha Bedingfield, and others as one of the live performers at the Peace One Day Concert set for September 9 in New York City...

MODERN ROCK LINK OF THE WEEK:
Weezer is set to embark on their first North American tour in three years, beginning September 23 in Boston and wrapping in late October; stops will include Chicago’s Allstate Arena (10/2) and Detroit’s Palace of Auburn Hills (9/29) - get all the tour dates and details at http://www.weezer.com/events/...

MINI BUZZ:
Speaking of the aforementioned Olympics, UK vocalist Sarah Brightman and Chinese singer Liu Huan unveiled the official 2008 Beijing Olympics theme song, “You and Me,” at the opening ceremonies in front of a crowd of 91,000 people and a global TV audience of over one billion...
Oasis have been keeping busy in England, filming a new music video in the tiny Cotswolds village of Bourton-on-the-Water...
Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry will be named a BMI Icon - an honor given to songwriters who have had a “unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers” - at the upcoming BMI London Awards in October...
Warner Music Group has announced as of last Thursday that videogame makers will now need to pay more in order to license songs for such music-based videogames as “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero”...
The American Music Union Fest took place last week in Pittsburgh, featuring a wide range of acts who could all trace their tunes back to the blues - among them The Roots, The Raconteurs, The Black Keys, Spoon, Gnarls Barkley, and Bob Dylan...
And Madonna’s recently-premiered documentary, I Am Because We Are, is set to get a companion book of photo images, of which the proceeds will be donated to the Raising Malawi charity organization...
And set for release this week are these new discs... ON CD: Talking Head David Byrne and super-producer Brian Eno’s Everything That Happens Will Happen Today... Ben Weaver’s The Axe and the Oak... Bark, Hide, and Horn’s National Road... David Sanborn’s Here and Gone... Jonas Brothers’ A Little Bit Longer... and Sunny Day Sets Fire’s Summer Palace... ON DVD: Bob Dylan’s Broadcast Rarities (import)... The Jam’s Trans Global Unity Express... The Fall - Shiftwork and Holidays ... and Foo Fighters: Live at Wembley Stadium... and that’s the buzz for this week’s Modern Rock.
Questions, comments, rants, raves, suggestions on this column or your fave musicians? Send ‘em to Kristi at modernrocker@gmail.com